Sun wrong on OTC birth control

As regards the figures quoted in your “bait-and-switch” editorial (“Birth control bait-and-switch,” Sept. 14), I believe your math may be deficient. You opine that several Republican Senate candidates’ proposal to make birth control available overthe-counter would make it more expensive as it would no longer be covered by insurance plans dictated by Obamacare.

You state that “the 48 million women who now get birth control under the health care law would pay an extra $438 million a year for the medication they nowreceive for free.” Dividing $438 million by 48 million and again by 365 days a year indicates a daily cost to those women of less than 3 cents a day. The cost of one of your daily newspapers is 200 cents. Given your math, the extra cost of birth control to those 48 million women is de minimis. You conclude your opinion by saying that “this should not be a political issue” and that if availability is to change, let it be because the medical community has decided it.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Committee on Gynecologic Practice determined the following in December 2012: “Weighing the risks versus the benefits based on currently available data, OCs (birth control) should be available over-the-counter.”

Perhaps rather than your math it is your consistently biased editorial content that is deficient.

Bob Cook, Ellicott City